I was recently asked to complete a survey commissioned by the Conservatives, but got stuck on one of the questions. It asked "Which of the following are major election issues for you?", and one of the multi-tick box options was "Immigration". Immigration is a major election issue for me, partly because of the appalling way so many immigrants are treated, and partly because of how difficult the marriage visa process is. The survey offered no opportunity, though, to clarify why immigration is a major election issue for me. They just seem to assume that everyone that cares about immigration does so in a "oh noes brown people stealing our jobs and benefits and being terrorists" kind of way.

As the husband of a (white) immigrant, I'm pretty sure I've never met anyone who is actually anti-immigration. Everyone I've spoken to has been willing to make an exception for my wife, "because that's different". When I tell people how difficult the immigration process is, they're surprised, and often ask me how all the asians get here - assuming, because they're here, that they must have found some other, easier, way.

So, immigration quotas. How are they going to work? Here's my three point plan:

Magically prevent people in other countries being persecuted (to prevent them from needing to claim asylum)

Disfigure any British people going abroad, and ban tourism into the UK (to reduce demand for marriage visas)

Remove the programmes that we have in place that allow immigrants to fill our skills-gaps (yes, more people will die on the longer hospital waiting lists, as Doctors are a significant number of the highly-skilled immigrants, but they'll be martyrs for a worthy cause).

Comment?

Notes, thoughts, opinions here are mine, and are not intended to, and so may not, reflect those of my employer, or any organisation mentioned. In the case of sermon notes, they may not accurately reflect the words or intent of the speaker listed, or my own - they are notes taken at the time based on what I took in and have not usually been edited since.